Expecting a Snake and Revealing a Lion
by ShadowKnightSRE
Summary: A hero with no friends. a girl who veered from her heritage. both are shunned by their School and in their loneliness they find someone to fight for. Each other. Fem!Harry/Astoria -Astoria in Gryffindor and a Shunned Fem!Harry Rated T for now


**Expecting a Snake and Revealing a Lion**

**Hey this is my new story that I will be posting occasionally alongside my other fic Concealed go check it out if you haven't already I think it's going pretty well but this story is another one that's been bouncing around in my head for a while. Astoria and Daphne are my favourite characters in Potter fanfiction so here we are a Fem!Harry/Astoria fic let's GO!**

**Concealed is still my main priority this is just a chance for me to take a break every once in a while to write something new.**

**Disclaimer… you know the drill I don't own Harry potter no matter how many shooting stars I might wish on.**

_Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for._

_-unknown_

Chapter-1 Loneliness of a Hero

One would think that a hero would be welcomed wherever they stepped foot, their accomplishments, intentional or otherwise told in tales to last throughout the ages. No one would suspect that one of the most renowned individuals in the Wizarding world was curled up in their recently given bedroom due only to circumstance and the fear her relatives currently held for her. You see this particular girl went by many names including the Girl-Who-Lived and more notably her given name Lyra Potter. She had to move her already dismal amount of belongings into the room that her cousin had previously used as a second bedroom to store his broken toys. She had to do this after she had come home for the summer from her boarding school, Hogwarts.

Lyra was pretty and had raven black hair that was below shoulder length, she was small and slender with piercing green eyes, she didn't need glasses. The only blemish on her otherwise perfect face was a lightning shaped bolt on her forehead acquired from her parent's murderer although her bangs falling from her unruly hair tended to cover it. Lyra had very pale skin that suggested she didn't see sunlight often which was true as she was an avid book reader and stayed inside most of the time, she read books mostly so she could escape this existence and spend time in another land and fantasy even if it was just for a little while.

Lyra was twelve years old and seemed normal in every aspect and you definitely wouldn't think this young girl was unusual, and that's how the Dursley's liked it. You see the Dursley's were as normal a family as you were ever to set eyes on. No one would suspect that the young girl, their niece, was a Witch. Not a Witch that curses people and steals children, oh no, this girl attended Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, self-proclaimed safest place in the world, Lyra disagreed. Lyra had this past year participated in several life threatening situations, trolls, Forests that were forbidden for a reason, Cerberus hell hounds and mad power hungry teachers with a severe case of two-face disorder, amazingly she survived all these things by herself.

You would think she would be proud that she did all this and survived by herself, you would be wrong. Lyra enjoyed magic and learning it, but Hogwarts was very lonely, no one wanted anything to do with her and to top it off she was socially awkward and hardly spoke at all. This was how she found herself curled up on her bed sobbing.

She had no friends to speak of and had to watch new friendships being formed at Hogwarts while all her efforts of friendships were rebuked. Even the resident know-it-all as some people had called her wouldn't befriend her, even after the Troll incident. The troll incident or as Lyra called it _the how the hell did this thing get in the girls bathroom _incident was when Hermione Granger had locked herself in the bathroom crying due to something Weasley had said to her.

It was on Halloween and Lyra had been there when Professor Quirrell stuttering extraordinaire ran into the room shouting "TROLL IN THE DUNGEON" before fainting. Lyra being a selfless person went looking for Hermione to warn her about the Troll only to be locked in the bathroom with said troll. Lyra had managed to defeat the Troll single handed using the simple levitation spell to knock itself out while Hermione cowered in a corner seemingly incapacitated in fear.

Lyra had held out some hope that her endeavour would gain her a friend; she was of course, wrong. Granger had thanked her for risking her life to save her before running off with Weasley whose fault it had originally been! And frustratingly never spoke of it again.

Lyra also found a mirror named the Mirror of Erised with the help of her invisibility cloak she had been given for Christmas by an anonymous benefactor. The mirror showed your hearts deepest desire. Lyra had met her parents that day, in the mirror she was surrounded by nameless faces smiling proudly at her. She also saw that in the Mirror she had several friends all laughing and smiling. The Mirror had almost consumed her as she constantly found herself in front of it night after night, this was before she was saved by a wizened old wizard who happened to be the Headmaster of Hogwarts; Professor Dumbledore had moved the Mirror and implored her not to go looking for it again. She, however, did go looking for it, but never happened upon it in her searches; she gave up the hope of seeing her parents again.

Lyra had a self-confidence problem, she doubted herself as she wondered why no one wanted to be friends with her. And so she stayed in the background hardly ever talking, and some people didn't even notice her in the class as she never spoke their either unless prompted by a teacher.

And so with no friends she threw herself into her studies and her books, after the troll incident it had spurned her on to learn more spells to protect herself. This was a good decision it seemed as at the end of the year Lyra found herself face to face with her parent's murderer.

She had figured out the clues that were obviously presented to her. Having nothing better to do and no friends to hang out with she solved the clues and proceeded by passing the rather amateurish tests to the Philosophers stone hidden inside. This was when she found herself facing the one _thing_ that had haunted her dreams for as long as she could remember. A flash of green and a high, cold laugh entered her mind unbidden.

Lyra, despite the odds, had defeated Quirrellmort, as she had nicknamed the hybrid, using her new spells with a pinch of luck and emerged victorious as her touch appeared fatal to her assailant. She had killed a man… an evil man but a man none the less and had anyone asked her if she was ok? No, had anyone offered their support? No, they wanted her to regale them with stories before never speaking to her again unless it was absolutely necessary for schoolwork or otherwise. When she had come around from her unconsciousness no one had visited her in the hospital wing, no one had even sent their well wishes, but they sung her praise when she helped win the House cup only for her to fade into the background again, ignored.

Overall Lyra had a miserable existence little did she know her world was about to change for the better…

The House elf almost convinced her to stay away from Hogwarts seeing as she had nothing to go back to, or rather no _one_ to go back to. Lyra remained resolute in her desperation as she still held onto that sliver of hope that a friend would present themselves to her this year. So she argued with the House elf exclaiming her need to go back to Hogwarts!

Dobby the house elf wasn't taking no for an answer and almost dropped a cake on her Uncle's guests but Lyra managed to grab him causing him stop the spell before it was hovered over the guests and dropped on the floor. At this point Dobby had disappeared in her grip with a click of his fingers.

She had been punished for her freakishness by her uncle and had been locked in her room for a week with less than her already minimal food she was given, though she was lucky it wasn't anything worse.

The Dursley's were her relatives only by blood as she hated their very being. Vernon Dursley was a whale of a man with a large moustache on his face as clear as the many chins he possessed, he also liked to punish with his fists. Petunia Dursley was a thin woman with a horse-like face and an immensely long neck used for peering out and spying on unsuspecting neighbours. Dudley Dursley took after his father in the whale category and also liked using his fists too much. He had blonde hair like his mother and he was spoiled like a Princess with daddy issues, while Lyra was left with hand-me-down clothes three times too big for her. If Petunia really knew what her son did she would have a heart attack and blame the other kids for provoking him.

You see Dudley Dursley was a bully, plain and simple, he terrorised the local children with his gang that consisted of kids bigger and dumber than he himself was.

Their favourite sport involved chasing Lyra and when they caught up to her, they would hurt her, but she learned pretty quickly that she was able to easily outstrip them in the running aspect due to their bulky build and her small frame. This game had stopped however as he dare not even talk to her as he fearing invoking her wrath and would use that Hocus-Pokus magic on him.

When the time for her to return to Hogwarts came around for her second year she was in low spirits as she honestly didn't expect much to change this year. She didn't realise how wrong she was.

Lyra sat alone in a compartment in the Hogwarts express. She had been having difficulty getting past the barrier to Platform One and Three-Quarters and had sent a letter with Hedwig to Professor McGonagall who arrived swiftly and broke whatever enchantment was on it.

And so she sat alone with only silence and the whirring of the train engineering as her traveling companions.

She entertained herself with her books as she always had, Weasley and Granger made an appearance in which Weasley insulted Lyra with words that had lost their effect a few weeks into the first year. Granger looked distinctly uncomfortable doing this, as most of the insults could be applied to her too.

Despite having no friends Lyra was observant of people mostly due to having nothing better to do and she tried to think of what she remembered of these people in particular.

Weasley was a poor boy from a large pureblood family having several siblings all with flaming red hair and dozens of freckles. Granger was Muggle-born and looked slightly more tanned than usual like she had been on holiday. Her hair was as bushy as ever with her slightly larger than normal front teeth that she was constantly teased over.

Wealey attempted to hurt her feelings with his poorly chosen words. Weasley only succeeded at being completely ignored by Lyra. Weasley eventually left with Granger after figuring out calling her a loner and a bookworm and other such pathetic insults had no effect on her so he finally took the hint and left.

After Weasley and Granger took their leave they were only to be replaced with Malfoy and his entourage minutes later. The blond haired bigot sauntered in and mild insults were traded. Malfoy was a Radical Pure-Blood supremacist and was always claiming his superiority and started spouting it off at that moment before Malfoy too went on his way followed by his lapdogs Crabbe and Goyle finally leaving her in peace again. Malfoy didn't usually go out of his way to find her as she mostly kept to herself and saw no need for there to be any animosity so she avoided him as best as she could.

The train had finally arrived at Hogwarts and she exited the train in her newly bought school robes and went towards the carriages to come face to face with a Thestral. The creature was Horse-like in its origin almost resembling a Pegasus as it had long wings however the Thestral had long bat like wings instead of that of a bird. Its skin was black and also looked like it was peeling off as if it was like an undead horse. Lyra had seen these before in books on magical creatures which were a point of interest for Lyra, she loved magical creatures that she thought were long since legends in the Muggle world. She stroked the Thestral's head and it whinnied before she clambered into the back of a carriage thinking about how easier it was to interact with Animals rather than Humans.

Some Hufflepuff second years climbed in behind her as they chatted animatedly with each other, they mostly ignored her presence as the carriage began to move. Lyra spent the rest of the relatively short ride lost in her thoughts of what the year would hold in store for her.

Lyra watched the first years with interest as they began being called up to the Sorting Hat; a patched and fraying leather wizards hat that had a unique tendency to burst out into song. The first years looked just as nervous as she had felt this time last year. The names were reeled off by Professor McGonagall and the first years started to join any of the four Houses.

"Greengrass, Astoria" Professor McGonagall had stated and Lyra's gaze went to the Slytherin table to Daphne Greengrass who was watching her sister intently. If Lyra was remembering correctly the Greengrass' were firmly set in Slytherin and didn't tolerate their members being in any other House.

The young girl nervously advanced towards the Hat, her blonde hair was long reaching down her back. She was pale with startling green eyes that were filled with nervous energy. The hat was placed on her head and the Hat took a while before it finally made a decision.

This was why the room halted all noise as the Sorting Hat placed someone expected to be a Snake in with the lions effectively shunning her from the beginning with a single word.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

**Hey guys this just an introduction chapter so it's a bit short. let me know in the reviews if I should continue the story and I stress again that Concealed is still my priority. Well I'm off to hunt some Pixies who looked at me funny.**


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